Extreme Totality
by SilverFlameHaze
Summary: One decision. One moment. Erasing everything you've done until then, either way. Max was fated to decide her end from two extremes. That was the totality of Max Caulfield. One-shot.
**Hey, uh... Any fans of my other stories from... Well, other sources, sorry that I haven't updated any of them in... About forever. At first, I did have an excuse.**

 **Then I had a new one. Then I forgot both of them. Eventually, I just couldn't push myself to write chapters for any of the stories. Which probably annoyed me far more than it annoyed you all because I was still writing more ideas in my folder on my computer. It is quite literally packed to the brim with ideas for new stories and the current ones. Not all of which I will be posting. I know better now.**

 **Still, I am here to... well, I suppose write down my first "completed" private work? It's actually my first and only "one-shot", so no surprise it is actually done.**

 **Let's just get onto the story, shall we?**

 **Reason: Totality means entirety, wholeness, etc. And I realized that, at the end of Max's path, she is not allowed much grey shades of character development. She is only allowed to be the person who would give up everything she loved, or the person who would destroy anything to save what she loved. The ending choice defines her and what she is most likely to do after it, living up to unreasonable standards either way.**

 **Summary: One decision. One moment. Erasing everything you've done until then, either way. Max was fated to decide her end from two extremes. That was her totality.**

 **Writing Prompt: A one-shot at attempting to type down my "version" of canon. Although, in truth, it's more of what my version of Max is like, inside my own head.**

* * *

She had a choice.

 _Sometimes life wasn't just strange_ , Max thought, as she gazed at the storm that she must have seen over a dozen times now.

Sometimes life was just unfair. Add in the fact that she practically lived outside of time? Her life was always unfair, simply shifting to her favor or to someone else some _times_.

It didn't matter who she was or what she did before getting to this point. Whatever she chose now would completely define her, regardless of anything else.

She had a choice, though.

Already, she could see visions of where this could lead, her growing presence in time allowing more things to slip if she concentrated, rather than going through it physically. After all, if she could go back in time physically with items, and her mind through pictures, then what could travel back with mere thoughts?

That was what she was doing, ironically enough. Reading thoughts her future selves was sending back, without effort. Not strong enough to take control of her, like a picture would do, but clearly enough to understand who they were. The smallest decisions unmade seeming like enormous personal changes, making them different 'people'.

They had made a choice.

But they were all Max Caulfield. They all had reasons for making those decisions. She agreed with all of them at one point in time, but that was both before and after attempting to find different ways around the storm.

It never worked. Lead a charge to move people from Arcadia Bay? Whatever "proof" of the future she gave was overwritten each time. Force them to move through "questionable" means? The storm would simply start somewhere else. Try and figure out what started the storm every time? Chloe Price. Just like her power.

Her best friend, her love, had made a choice.

She could be completely selfless. Choose to rewind everything she had done to help her best friend and the sacrifices they had made. To shoulder everything inside her own mind, the only one who would remember what had happened. To let fate take her best friend, her love, in exchange for the entire city. Everybody would eventually be happy, except the unknown hero who would be unable to take her eyes off of her best friend as she was murdered and was forced to watch her funeral mere moments later, due to time resetting.

The right decision. The completely selfless decision. To sacrifice everything she was, everything her feelings wanted, and live in secret agony for the lives of Arcadia Bay, for 'justice'. Unable to even die and follow her best friend, because that would cause her parents pain. Suicide was selfish.

She could be completely selfish. Choose to not change anything. To let fate have it's deal. The lives of Arcadia Bay for her and her love. Choose to go into the unknown world with nothing but her powers and her best friend. To understand that she could raise her hand and smite all that challenged their lives together, for she had already done so while killing innocents. Almost everybody that she had helped would die. She could see the few that survived and knew that she would lie to their faces about how she felt, that she was GLAD that fate had finally been appeased.

The wrong decision. The completely selfish decision. To let fate have everything that she didn't claim as her own. To lie to her friends, her family, even her love, and deal with their guilt for her 'happiness'. Unable to even visit the remains of the city and pay her respects for those she had refused to save, because of her own guilt. Ignoring her own feelings was selfless.

In the end, she always had a choice to make.

She would be doomed to absolute sacrifice. Her own or others.

But for this moment, she wasn't Max Caulfield, the person who would fake a smile at Chloe's funeral for Joyce even as she felt her soul die. She wasn't Max Caulfield, the person who would lose herself in a kiss as people she knew died below her very feet.

She was just Max, the girl who at one point loved photography and pretending to be a pirate as a little girl.

Now? She could no longer look at a flash of light without her blood running cold and her first mate seemed to be ready to throw herself into "Davy Jones' Locker" if she let go of her hand.

 _Not much of an identity_ , Max thought with a slightly grim smile, _but... I suppose it will do_.

 _There's no point in wasting more time_ , she mused, _ironic though that may be._

After all, when you have several "weeks" to deal with the possible end of the everything you loved, you tend to have time to make a final choice. Even now, she wasn't sure if that had helped or hurt her final decision, as she had changed it a few times.

Not out of time, but rather, out of patience, Max raised her hand as if she could capture the tornado within it. She knew it was a feeble gesture, but that didn't stop her hand clenching shut in reserved anger, slightly crumbling the photo within.

With a heavy heart, she raised her other hand and chose-

Chloe's face as she saw her tear the photo apart would _never_ be worth the lives lost from the action.

But it would _always_ be a good start.

* * *

 **And... that's pretty much it. It actually took me about an hour to finish this which is... far longer than I thought a one-shot would be. Hell, my ideas alone in other documents can reach up to 3k words in this time. This is a whole "story" yet it's only a third of that. Maybe I just write notes weird?**

 **Either way. Hoped you enjoyed my personal view on the ending... Far, far after the game is released because I get games really late.**


End file.
